There has been yet another Friday afternoon dustup in this political campaign. Barack Obama was speaking in San Francisco last week (yes, last week– it took this long for somebody to find the video). He was entering a question about why some Pennsylvania voters are finding it hard to get behind his campaign. As usual, Obama gave a very thoughtful answer:

“But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Hillary Clinton, because her campaign is desperate, and John McCain, because he’s a Republican, have both jumped on this statement. They make accusations of Obama being an elitist (McCain may be the richest man in the Senate and Clinton made over $109 million in the last seven years. And THEY are calling Obama elitist? That’s rich…pun intended). Further accusations toward Obama of not respecting gunowners or religious God-fearing people have been recklessly thrown out. (more…)